A/N - Sadly, these characters all belong to SM.

I want to thank you all for reading and reviewing. It is so exciting to me that people are actually interested in my story.

If you have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know. I've never done the writing thing, so I'm pretty open.

Again… Looking for a beta.

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"Can you get that?" I yelled to Embry from the bathroom where I was giving Leah her bath and repeatedly telling Seth to put his pajamas on.

I couldn't get to the phone, but I was worried that it was someone from school telling me they were going to be out tomorrow. It was my semester to find substitutes, so I really had to pay attention to my phone.

I heard Embry coming into the kids' bathroom with the phone, and I grabbed it, placing it between my shoulder and ear, expecting it to be a teacher. I was surprised to hear Edward's voice on the other end of the line, and he actually sounded a bit irritated.

"I was just calling to see how your day went," he said quietly.

"It was awful and crazy busy. Can I call you back when I get the kids in bed?"

"If you want to. I'll talk to you later."

I handed the phone back to Embry as I pulled Leah out of the tub and dried her off. He took the phone back to its base and then came back in the bathroom to ask who the dude was that had such bad manners.

"What did he say?"

"He just asked for you, but I could tell that he was pissed about a guy answering your phone."

Embry's very pregnant wife, Tanya walked in behind him and said, "Maybe I should call him back and tell him that Embry's taken."

They began kissing, which grossed me out, so I followed Leah into her room to make sure she was getting dressed.

"Oh no," Embry said, "You aren't getting out of this conversation… Who is the guy."

"He's a guy that I knew in high school. I helped him look for an apartment this weekend."

"Is this the guy that Lauren saw you with Sunday morning?"

"Are you fucking kidding me," I yelled, glad that I had left Leah's room just before he dropped that bombshell. "She's already telling people about that."

Tanya piped in, "Yeah, she said he was HOT!… she also said it was obvious that the two of you were just friends."

Not knowing how to take that or what to say, I just nodded my head. "You see, it's nothing."

Embry and Jake had been roommates when they started teaching. I knew him from hanging out at Jake's apartment. He and I began working together about a year before Jake's accident, and he and I became very close. It used to drive Jake crazy that Embry talked more to me than he did Jake. I knew that he and Tanya were engaged before anyone else, and I was named the godmother of their first baby. That baby was currently chasing my son around with a sword right now pretending to be Peter Pan.

"Embry, Can we talk about this another night please? I need to get my kids in bed. 5:00 comes really early."

"Sure babe, but you know I'm not gonna let you forget. I won't bug you about it at work, if people are around though."

"Oh, well, thank you so much."

Embry had actually done me a huge favor this afternoon, and I owed him for it. I had a meeting with a group of counselors at the end of the day. One of them was a close friend of Lauren's and she went on the attack as soon as she walked in. The meeting was to discuss issues that kids face today, and she was quick to jump in and start talking about verbally abusive parents. She talked about how children that saw their mother yelling at their father could be scarred for life and it may not show for years. She even pulled out a study she had read. I refused to take the bait, and I agreed with her.

"I do think it's a terrible thing for children to see anyone say mean things to other people. Some people are willing to lie, cheat, and steal to get their way. Don't you think that is harmful to children as well?"

Victoria then brought up another study she had read about children raised in single-parent households. "Children raised by single parents have been found to suffer from serious psychiatric illnesses and addictions later in life. Other results from these studies showed girls were three times more likely to become drug addicts if they lived with a sole parent, and boys were four times more likely."

I had no argument for that. I have read all the studies I could get my hands on to make sure that my children didn't become a statistic. Hell, that was the reason I had stayed married to a man that I questioned my love for anyway. I felt all the energy drain out of my body, and I was so afraid that I would start to cry in front of all those people.

I waited for a break and headed back to my office. The plan was to skip out of the rest of the meeting and get some work done that I had neglected. I sat down, and the tears came. Embry happened to walk by and see me, head in hands, at my desk. He came in and didn't ask a single question. He just pulled me into his massive arms and let me cry.

"Where are the kids today?" he asked after I had finally started settling down.

"Billy was dropping them off at Charlie's. I'm heading out to pick them up in a few minutes."

"Let me go get them for you. You take a few minutes to get yourself together and finish what you need to get done here. Tanya, Quil, and I will pick up the kids and dinner and meet you at your house."

"That's too much to ask of you guys. Besides, I haven't seen my babies since Saturday. I miss them."

"Bella, you will see them about fifteen minutes later than you would have seen them if you went to get them. Take that time to collect yourself so that when you do see them, you are in a good mood. You're doing the best you can. Your kids are great!"

"How do you always know what I need to hear?"

"I'm just good like that, I guess," he said with a smirk on his face as he was walking out of my office. "Call Charlie so he doesn't think I'm kidnapping them."

"You're the best! I love you Em."

Dinner was pizza and wings. Man, those La Push boys could eat.

The kids ran around like wild things for a little while after dinner, and it was hard to imagine the things that were going on in this house just last night…

I felt drained after sharing my Lauren/Jacob story. It felt like a betrayal of his memory to talk about him with Edward. There were so many issues in my relationship with Jake, and I had never shared them with anyone. Embry knew a little bit, and I think that Edward had probably figured out a bit from my e-mails, but saying them out loud made it all seem so different. I wanted to be careful not to speak ill of the deceased, but I also didn't want to give Edward the wrong impression. Jake wasn't a bad guy - he was just not my Mr. Right.

Edward had told me that he and Jessica were legally separated quite some time ago, but I didn't know much else. I asked him why he was moving back to this area and what had happened between the two of them.

"Jessica and I got married because it was convenient. I know that sounds pompous and ridiculous, but I knew that I would never love her, and she told me that she felt the same way about me."

"Why would you marry someone that you didn't think you could love?"

"One could ask the same of you B- Why did you marry Jacob if you didn't love him?"

"Edward that's not fair. I did love Jake, I just wasn't madly in love with him. He was my best friend, and we enjoyed each other's company."

"You could say the same for Jessica and I. But as I'm sure you know, when you are trying to make yourself have feelings that you don't have, you stop enjoying the other person as much."

"I don't think I'm ready to have this conversation this afternoon, Edward. You've been physically back in my life for a little less than 24 hours, and I'm exhausted."

"Anything you want, beautiful."

Edward pulled me back into his chest and began running his fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes and just enjoyed the moment. His fingers started grazing up and down my arms and neck. I turned my head a bit so that I could take his fingers into my mouth. I began by licking his finger tips, but before long, I was sucking on his fingers in a way that obviously made him think of other things. I looked up to see his that his eyes were intently watching my mouth, and his breathing had gotten much heavier. I smirked at him and pulled his head down to my mouth. I began thrusting my tongue into his mouth causing him to groan. When he said my name into my mouth, I began to sit up so that I had a better angle.

He pushed me back down onto my back, and he laid next to me. Kissing me, he said, "I didn't do this just so I could get in your pants."

"Edward, if I thought you planned all of this so you could get in my pants, I can assure you, you wouldn't be. We have one more night of freedom, I say we make the most of it."

"Sounds perfect to me," he said as he rolled me on top of him.

We made out for quite a while, which was so reminiscent of high school, I forgot about all of my adult worries for a while. As the sun started going down, we decided we should probably start our hike back so that we didn't have to walk through the woods after dark. Edward stood up to start packing things up, and I sat on my knees to finish putting the food back in the basket. He was turned around putting the unfinished bottles of wine back in the bag, when I thought what the hell. I reached around his waist and put my hands on the button of his jeans.

"Bella, what are you doing?"

I looked up through my eyelashes and asked him if he wanted me to stop.

"That all depends on what it is you are about to do," he said with a definite smirk on his face.

"I'm about to give you the best blow job you have ever had."

"While that certainly sounds nice, I had this girlfriend when I was in high school, and I don't think anybody could compete with her…"

"We'll see."

I unbuttoned his pants and turned him around so that he was facing me. While pulling his pants and underwear down, I licked the tip of his cock, granting me a loud groan. I then ran my tongue down the underside of him while reaching up to gently massage.

"Oh God Bella!"

I took the length of him in my mouth, which was a task because he wasn't a small man. I put one hand on his ass and pulled him into me. I let him set the pace as he realized that he was supposed to thrust. I looked up at him to see him watching me intently. I could tell that he was getting close by the look on his face, so I pushed him in a bit further relaxing my mouth and throat. His thrusting became more frequent, and he started to pant.

"Bella I'm gonna cum. Do you want me to pull out?"

I looked up at him and shook my head no. At that time, I could feel him pulsating into my mouth. I swallowed it and then licked him clean. Before I could start to pull his pants up, he had lifted me off the ground and began kissing me passionately.

"You were right… You're way better than that girl I knew in high school. I can't even remember her name right now."

I smacked him lightly and we finished packing the picnic. The hike back to the car was quiet, and I fell asleep in the car on the way back to my house. Edward returned the favor before we spent the evening cooking dinner together. After dinner, we made use of the hot tub and the living room couch. It was quite the evening.

Both kids were peacefully sleeping when I went to check on them, so I went to my room to do some work and call Edward Back. I checked my email to find one from the other counselor at my school:

Bella -

I wanted to tell that girl Victoria to piss off. It was so obvious to all of the other counselors what she was trying to do. I'm sorry you missed the last part of the meeting where Marcus pulled out his study on what having an ugly mother could do to a child.

Love you girl,

Kim

By that time, I felt so much better, I almost didn't want to call Edward if he was in a bad mood. Before I could think about it for too long, he had called me back.

I answered the phone quickly so as not to wake up the little ones.

"Hey there!"

"Hey! I'm not waking up your kids am I?"

"No. I always bring the phone into my room at night. I'm sorry I couldn't talk to you earlier, there were three children and three adults all talking at once."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

Part of me wanted to let him wonder who the random guy was that answered my phone, but I just don't have it in me to try to make a guy jealous.

"It's not a problem. I had a really bad day at work, so my friend Embry and his family came over for dinner."

Edward seemed appeased by the fact that Embry and his family were here. "I'm sorry you had a bad day. Do you want to talk about it?"

"There's really not much to talk about. One of Lauren's friends just managed to push my buttons today. Oh, and apparently she thinks you're hot and it's obvious that you wouldn't be dating me."

Edward Chuckled a bit and said, "Lauren has absolutely no idea. So when can I see you again?"

"I don't know Edward. My kids going out of town for the weekend is not a common thing. It may be a while before something like that happens again."

"Well, how about a date? Can you get a sitter one night to go out with me?

"Probably. When are you thinking?"

"The sooner the better. I miss you already."

"Ok. I will talk to Charlie and see if he's interested in some Grandpa time one night this week. I'll call you tomorrow."

"Sounds great, I'll talk to you soon."

I got off the phone and worked for a bit. I finished the few things that I absolutely had to get done and planned on reading some book about vampires that all of my students had been talking about. I didn't even get the book open before I fell dreamlessly asleep. I didn't wake up until my alarm went off the following morning.